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Speaker 1: Longtime listeners of Stuff You Should Know are well aware

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Speaker 1: that I've come a long way with my feelings on squirrels.

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Speaker 1: Time was I saw them as a common pest who

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Speaker 1: invaded my.

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Speaker 2: Bird feeders at Baby se Red.

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Speaker 1: But then along came my precious four legged daughter, Momo,

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Speaker 1: who taught me to appreciate squirrels and ways I never

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Speaker 1: thought possible. Now Momo takes me and her mom to

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Speaker 1: feed the squirrels in the park every morning, and now

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Speaker 1: a day goes back and I don't lift my gaze

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Speaker 1: to the skies and thank Mother Earth for our squirrel friends.

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Speaker 1: Squirrels are great squirrel's.

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Speaker 3: Ahoy, Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and Jerry is here, and

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Speaker 1: this is one of the greatest episodes we'll ever do

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Speaker 1: as far as I'm concerned.

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Speaker 2: Squirrels.

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Speaker 4: Oh, I really want to squirrels. I've been seeing that

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Speaker 4: all day.

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Speaker 2: It's so wonderful. That is so wonderful.

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Speaker 4: It is that song isn't But you.

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Speaker 2: Know, uh yeah yeah.

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Speaker 1: If you go back and listen to BC Boys, you're.

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Speaker 4: Like, Wow, they come a long way. Though, and renouncing

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Speaker 4: that stuff.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. So we're talking not about the BC Boys, surprising,

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Speaker 1: and we're talking about squirrels in the morning. It's squirrels

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Speaker 1: there evening, it's squirrels.

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Speaker 4: Squirrels two syllables, right.

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Speaker 1: I don't care however you want to say it the

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Speaker 1: squirrel sure or Boston I guess probably they say it

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Speaker 1: similarly as well. Yeah, but if you want to get fancy,

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Speaker 1: you can bust out their Latin name. They're members of

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Speaker 1: the rodent Order. But for their family, their squore a day,

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Speaker 1: scure a day, Nope, secury day.

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Speaker 4: I look this one up, all right, Sierrade.

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Speaker 2: Like mine more?

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Speaker 4: Okay? Did you just toot on my renvation?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, even though it was correct.

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Speaker 4: Did you give me a bronx cheer?

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Speaker 2: How? How is it? Suride?

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Speaker 4: Well, let me do the person online? Sierra diye?

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Speaker 2: Okay? Is that Emma who said that?

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Speaker 4: Or at Sierra Day was another? But I think we've

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Speaker 4: heard from people that Dae is die.

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Speaker 1: Okay, And that's fine if that's what it's called. I'm

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Speaker 1: just gonna call them squirrels from now on.

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Speaker 2: But there's actually.

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Speaker 1: Exactly like three hundred species of squirrels and it's it's

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Speaker 1: kind of hard to wrap your head around because usually

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Speaker 1: if you live in a place with squirrels, meaning you

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Speaker 1: live on a continent outside of Antarctica.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, like everywhere.

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Speaker 1: Basically, they're probably a lot of squirrels living around you,

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Speaker 1: and they probably all look basically exactly alike. Because it

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Speaker 1: seems seems like when they fill an ecological niche, brother,

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Speaker 1: they fill it, and there's not much room for competing species,

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Speaker 1: it seems like from my experience.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, there are enough who helped us with this.

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Speaker 2: This this is a grabster.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, so Grabster points out that you know, you can

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Speaker 4: find mountain squirrels and city squirrels, and forest squirrels and

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Speaker 4: jungle squirrels and desert squirrels. You can find squirrels and

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Speaker 4: Alaska that hibernate with the lowest body temperature of any mammal,

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Speaker 4: that have body temperatures below freezing at times.

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Speaker 2: That's so cool.

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Speaker 4: You can go to Africa and find one of the

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Speaker 4: cutest squirrels, the African pigmy squirrel, which is as small

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Speaker 4: as a tiny little mouse. Where you can go to

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Speaker 4: Buttan and find the giant flying squirrel of Button that

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Speaker 4: with their head and body and is over two feet

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Speaker 4: long with that tail, they're huge.

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Speaker 1: No, two feet long without the tail, oh, without stressing, Yes,

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Speaker 1: they're distressingly large.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, because the squirrel tail will get into this. But

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Speaker 4: that's one of their signature features generally, although depending on

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Speaker 4: the species, because there are three hundred species, like you said,

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Speaker 4: more than or almost three hundred, some of those tails

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Speaker 4: are a little diminished. But usually when you think squirrel,

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Speaker 4: you think of that big, bushy tail.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and not only when you think of squirrel you

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Speaker 1: think of the tail. But the Greeks themselves, right, somebody

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Speaker 1: decided that a Greek term would make sense. But scurios

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Speaker 1: or scourios, which roughly means something like shadow tail ed,

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Speaker 1: says shady Butt. I also saw shadowtail, which is a

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Speaker 1: reference to how squirrels sometimes hide in the shadow cast

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Speaker 1: by their own tail.

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Speaker 2: It's pretty clever, but.

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Speaker 1: The squirrel is usually kind of The bushy tail of

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Speaker 1: the squirrel is what makes a squirrel a squirrel. One

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Speaker 1: of the other things that really differentiates it from other

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Speaker 1: rodents is the way that it's jaw and muscle are

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Speaker 1: attached to its skull. There's actually a name for it,

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Speaker 1: seriomorphous zygomasoteric system. They look at you hooked on phonics

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Speaker 1: works for me.

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Speaker 4: You even recorded the new pronunciation. That's right, you worked

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Speaker 4: it right in there with a syria dye.

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Speaker 1: I adapted, yeah, because you should have heard it before

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Speaker 1: when I was workshopping it.

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Speaker 4: That was the first take. Everybody, we're not lying.

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Speaker 1: So so those are two things that really kind of

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Speaker 1: differentiate squirrels. But as we've really gotten better and better

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Speaker 1: at taxonomy with the introduction of geno mapping, sure we

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Speaker 1: can see, like, oh, this animal that doesn't look anything

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Speaker 1: like this animal is actually really closely related. And as

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Speaker 1: with just about every other animal we've studied using modern

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Speaker 1: genetic taxonomy, squirrels are Our understanding of squirrels has really

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Speaker 1: kind of changed shape of who's related to whom, who's

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Speaker 1: descended from who. But there's there We're kind of going

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Speaker 1: to go the old school way, which is differentiating them

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Speaker 1: based on their habitat and their behavior. So there's three

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Speaker 1: groups of squirrels that we're going to cover, even though

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Speaker 1: there's technically five subfamilies now, ground squirrels, tree squirrels, and

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Speaker 1: flying squirrels. And before we go any further, I officially

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Speaker 1: dedicate this episode to Momo, one of the great lovers

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Speaker 1: of squirrels of all time, who changed changed me in

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Speaker 1: my heart towards squirrels.

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Speaker 2: I used to be a squirrel hater. Chuck, do you

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Speaker 2: remember squirrels? You remember?

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Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, the bird feeder Momo pointed out to me, said, Dad,

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Speaker 1: squirrels are great. I'm going to teach you to love them.

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Speaker 2: And she did.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, dogs and squirrels. It's what was the Disney It

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Speaker 4: was either Pixar Disney had an animated movie where the

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Speaker 4: dog would just stop and go squirrel anytime there's a squirrel.

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Speaker 4: I can't remember which one was.

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Speaker 2: I don't remember.

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Speaker 4: It wasn't that long ago. But before we move on

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Speaker 4: to ground squirrels, it is kind of fun to learn

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Speaker 4: that because of that DNA analysis that we now have

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Speaker 4: at our fingertips and fossil evidence, we know that squirrels

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Speaker 4: went to western North America thirty five to forty million

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Speaker 4: years ago because squirrels like to get around. As we

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Speaker 4: will see, they crossed a land bridge to Eurasia about

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Speaker 4: ten million years after that, and then as soon as

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Speaker 4: they could as soon as Eurasia met up with Africa

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Speaker 4: about twenty million years ago, they went, all right, we're

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Speaker 4: in Africa now too. Because squirrels like to get around.

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Speaker 4: They as you will see, Well, we'll just tease that

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Speaker 4: and say, squirrels like to get around.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you put one tree next to another,

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Speaker 1: squirrel's going to go from tree to tree. Put another tree,

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Speaker 1: squirrel's going to go the next tree. And if you

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Speaker 1: put trees all the way across one continent to another,

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Speaker 1: they're going to migrate. That's just what they do, and

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Speaker 1: that's what they did. But if I thought I loved

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Speaker 1: squirrels before, now that I know that they're actually native

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Speaker 1: from plenty five million years back to North America, I

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Speaker 1: just think that's that's just the tops.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and we talked about it before when you were

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Speaker 4: having your bird feeder issue. But you know, Atlanta is

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Speaker 4: a city in the forest, and we have tons and

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Speaker 4: tons and tons of squirrels. Kind of everywhere along the

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Speaker 4: East Coast does, but Atlanta just has a lot of squirrels.

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Speaker 4: And as I was reading, you know, from my upstairs office,

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Speaker 4: there's a window not right in front of my face

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Speaker 4: but sort of above me and our huge, big, beautiful

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Speaker 4: oak in our front yard. I'm doing this on squirrels.

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Speaker 4: I just look up for a second and I see

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Speaker 4: four squirrels running around that tree together, playing like circling

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Speaker 4: it like a barber pole.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: I take my daughter to school this morning, and I

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Speaker 4: count the squirrels that I see on the way. I

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Speaker 4: counted twenty two squirrels that I just saw on a

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Speaker 4: you know, twelve minute car ride.

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Speaker 2: You hit one of them there.

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Speaker 4: I have before. It's the worst thing ever. It is,

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Speaker 4: But they're everywhere in Atlanta, And it hit me a

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Speaker 4: while ago about how easy it is living here or

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Speaker 4: anywhere where there's a lot of squirrels, just to sort

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Speaker 4: of be like, yeah, the squirrels. But it kind of

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Speaker 4: hit me like how crazy it is that there are

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Speaker 4: these little mammals. They're not hiding in holes generally like

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Speaker 4: mice and stuff like that. Like they're just out all

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Speaker 4: over the place at all times. We're surrounded by these

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Speaker 4: little mammals.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, out and proud.

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Speaker 1: And if you come close too close to one of

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Speaker 1: their trees when you're walking by and the squirrel doesn't

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Speaker 1: like it, he's gonna sit there or she and chatter

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Speaker 1: at you and basically tell you to beat it. You

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Speaker 1: punk get away from my tree. That's how. That's one

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Speaker 1: of the great lovable things about squirrels. They have such

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Speaker 1: huge personalities. They're just so great.

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Speaker 2: Chuck.

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Speaker 4: Remember my famous squirrel attack not too long ago, and

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Speaker 4: when I went outside, I got it on my doorbell

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Speaker 4: camera and that squirrel leaped through the air and hit

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Speaker 4: me in the leg. It was a complete accident. Of course,

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Speaker 4: I don't think the squirrel was trying to kill me, But.

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Speaker 2: You don't know.

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Speaker 4: They're just they're all over the place. We're gonna get

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Speaker 4: to all the fun stuff about the black squirrels of

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Speaker 4: New York and why squirrels stop in the middle of

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Speaker 4: the road when they go to across the street. Like

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Speaker 4: there we found reasons for all this stuff, which I love.

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Speaker 4: It's not that squirrels are dumb, and we're gonna reveal

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Speaker 4: all that in this episode.

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Speaker 1: Okay, I'm a little excited. I'm a little worked up.

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Speaker 1: I know it's a ted early, but first break. Okay,

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Speaker 1: we're so squirrel positive that, I mean, that's a great

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Speaker 1: way to put.

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Speaker 4: It, Chuck, all right, so are we taking a break?

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Speaker 4: I say, all right, I need to calm down to

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Speaker 4: and I guarantee you I'm gonna go like blow my

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Speaker 4: nose in the other room. I'm gonna see a squirrel.

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Speaker 2: I'll be right back, all right, Chuck.

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Speaker 1: So, as promised, we're gonna break squirrels down into three groups, crown, tree, flying,

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Speaker 1: or aerial. And I propose that we start with the

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Speaker 1: ground squirrel. Sure, many species of which you probably not you,

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Speaker 1: but I mean you, dear listener, and may all include

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Speaker 1: two I didn't realize were actual squirrels, like groundhog.

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Speaker 4: Chuck did not know that was a squirrel.

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Speaker 2: Chipmunk.

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Speaker 4: I had a feeling that might be a squirrel.

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Speaker 1: Gosh, they're so great too, Yeah, chipmunks. What about a groundhog?

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Speaker 4: You already said groundhog?

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Speaker 1: Did I yeah, okay, I'm swirling. I'm swirling still. And

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Speaker 1: my love squirrel prairie dog. Yeah, well that's what was

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Speaker 1: coming out of my mouth next.

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Speaker 2: To Patty Dog.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, prairie dog didn't know it.

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Speaker 2: What about that meerkat?

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Speaker 4: I didn't know that.

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Speaker 2: Well, that's because.

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Speaker 1: They're not but okay, prairie dogs, chipmunks, and what's the

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Speaker 1: other one, marmots? Yeah, marmots and brought them in groundhogs.

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Speaker 1: Those are all ground squirrels. They're squirrels friends, and that

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Speaker 1: makes them pretty awesome. But one of the reasons why

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Speaker 1: they you wouldn't think they're squirrels is because in a

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Speaker 1: lot of those species they lack that characteristic bushy tail. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but then also they live almost a totally different life

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Speaker 1: from their tree dwelling more famous cousins.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, they might climb a tree, but generally

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Speaker 4: you're not going to see a groundhogger prairie dog up

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Speaker 4: in the tree. If they need to, you know, for

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Speaker 4: a brief time, if they're trying to find food or

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Speaker 4: something or like on the run from something trying to

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Speaker 4: kill it, they might go up in a tree, but

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Speaker 4: they generally hang out on the ground, hence the name

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Speaker 4: they love their rocky terrain chipmunks for just speaking for them,

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Speaker 4: are pretty solitary unless they're trying to reproduce. But I

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Speaker 4: know that you've found some stuff, was it on the

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Speaker 4: prairie dog that have their big families and colonies.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's one of the main characteristics of

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Speaker 1: ground squirrels in general, aside from a couple, but that

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Speaker 1: they're much more communal than tree squirrels, and in particular,

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Speaker 1: the largest town a prairie dog town, is what they're

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Speaker 1: called the largest prairie dog town on record is in Texas,

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Speaker 1: because of course everything's bigger there, But it was a

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Speaker 1: colony of black tailed prairie dogs. And this town, Chuck,

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Speaker 1: stretched one hundred miles wide, wow, by two hundred and

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Speaker 1: fifty miles long, and contain four hundred million prairie dogs.

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Speaker 1: My gos again, crownd squirrels all living in this kind

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Speaker 1: of large community. Jeez, I mean that's it's like a

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Speaker 1: Chinese megacity or something like that times ten.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, So are these the ones that tend to stay

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Speaker 4: grouped with their own sex?

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Speaker 1: No, those tend to be either tree squirrels or flying squirrels.

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Speaker 1: These are more the because they live in communal groups

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Speaker 1: and kinship is a big deal. Ground squirrels, like prairie dogs,

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Speaker 1: tend to have a really good ability to smell the

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Speaker 1: scent of other ground squirrels, so they can tell like

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Speaker 1: who's a blood relation who's not. They've done studies to see,

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Speaker 1: you know, like if a ground squirrel. They have a

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Speaker 1: lot of really sophisticated calls too, because they're alerting others

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Speaker 1: to the presence of a rattlesnake or a hawk or something.

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Speaker 1: So they're really talkative and they have a lot of

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Speaker 1: sophisticated different communication and they found that like a prairie

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Speaker 1: dog that will stand up and take the time to

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Speaker 1: risk its own life to alert others, it's actually alerting.

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Speaker 1: The others that it's alerting are actually related by blood.

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Speaker 1: And the groundhog or the prairie dog knows this because

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Speaker 1: it can smell its blood relations among all these other

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Speaker 1: you know, extended family members in the town.

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Speaker 4: There's not much cuter than a squirrel up on its

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Speaker 4: hot rear haunches. Yeah, whether it's I mean, obviously those

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Speaker 4: prairie dogs, you know, they do it for a living.

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Speaker 4: But even our eastern gray squirrels sit upon those back

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Speaker 4: legs if they want to work a nut with their

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Speaker 4: little front pop ads.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, or a chipmunk on its back legs. It's doesn't

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Speaker 1: get much cute.

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Speaker 4: It's little busy hands. Goodness me. Yeah, all right, So

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Speaker 4: we can move on to our tree squirrel. This is

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Speaker 4: they're known as arboreal squirrels obviously because they are tree squirrels.

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Speaker 4: And this is when you're talking your eastern gray squirrel.

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Speaker 4: This is not a groundhog, this is not a prairie dog.

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Speaker 4: This is your dyed in the wool. Cute, little fluffy

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Speaker 4: tailed sort of you know, they're called gray, but there's

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Speaker 4: sort of a light brownish color generally, although the colors

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Speaker 4: do range, as we'll see. And these are the ones

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Speaker 4: that you're gonna find all over Atlanta, jumping around, climbing around,

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Speaker 4: leaping it podcasters in their front lawn. Yeah, they spend

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Speaker 4: most of the time. I mean, you see them on

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Speaker 4: the ground plenty, but they live in trees. They nest

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Speaker 4: in trees called drays or drays or Drey's spelled with

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Speaker 4: a year an a right.

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Speaker 1: And you probably if you've ever looked up and seen

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Speaker 1: a mass of like sticks and twigs and a leafless

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Speaker 1: tree in the middle of winter, you're looking at a

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Speaker 1: squirrel's nest called a dre And this is where you

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Speaker 1: were you were asking about them staying in like same

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Speaker 1: sex groups apparently in the winter. Even though the tree

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Speaker 1: squirrel does not live in a communal society like a

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Speaker 1: ground squirrel does, they're still social. They still interact with

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Speaker 1: one another. They play, they chase, they chase one another off.

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Speaker 2: They like mate. But when it.

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Speaker 1: Gets really cold, tree squirrels will kind of group their

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Speaker 1: heat together by staying in a dre communally up to

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Speaker 1: like thirty members. It's able, Yeah, it is very adorable.

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Speaker 1: I want to do a little exercise here real quick, Chuck.

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Speaker 1: I want you to use your imagination.

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Speaker 2: Close.

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Speaker 1: Imagine a very cold winter day. The wind's blowing, snow's

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Speaker 1: being carried on the wind, and it's passing by just

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Speaker 1: outside a woodpecker hole, and we're inside that woodpecker hole's dark.

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Speaker 1: The light is very very faint because it's it's kind

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Speaker 1: of an overcast, snowy day to begin with. But we're

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Speaker 1: also inside a tree, in an old woodpecker hole, and

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Speaker 1: it's lined with a bunch of different leaves, and there's

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Speaker 1: half a dozen or so squirrels, all kind of snuggled together, sleeping,

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Speaker 1: sharing their warmth as the winter day passes by outside

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Speaker 1: and they snooze an afternoon away fat on acorns that

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Speaker 1: they all just ate. Oh boy, isn't that amazing?

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Speaker 4: I almost fell asleep. You're real, Robert Fross, my friend,

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Speaker 4: Thank you.

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Speaker 2: Thank you. I like to think Robert Redford crossed with

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Speaker 2: Robert Cross.

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Speaker 4: But sure, well you know Robert Redford if you look

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Speaker 4: in the mirror, but Robert Frost when you pick a.

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Speaker 1: Bent up with the touch of Robert Goolay if.

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Speaker 4: You say it surely, Oh man, that really did almost

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Speaker 4: put me to sleep. That's quite nice. I love that scene.

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Speaker 4: So here's a little fun adaptation that squirrels have. If

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Speaker 4: you see a tree squirrel running down a tree face

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Speaker 4: first with little resistance, it's just like it was made

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Speaker 4: to do it. It's because it is. And they have

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Speaker 4: those little claws of course that really helps. But if

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Speaker 4: you look closely, or if you look up a picture

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Speaker 4: rather and you see like a still image, you will

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Speaker 4: notice that they have the ability to and Ed says

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Speaker 4: they can turn their feet around. They really kind of

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Speaker 4: just turn their whole back legs around backwards to where

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Speaker 4: those claws are gripping on the way down. And that's

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Speaker 4: why they're you know, it's like the perfect adaptation to

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Speaker 4: be able to run up and down a tree.

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Speaker 1: So if you ever watched one do that up close, sure,

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Speaker 1: so anytime I've seen that there, if you look their

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Speaker 1: legs because they're turned around and it kicks kind of

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Speaker 1: their elbows out a little bit, uh huh, and they

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Speaker 1: climb down, it looks a little different. And I've noticed

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Speaker 1: that it triggers the part of my lizard brain. That's

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Speaker 1: like a spider alert. It's like that's triggered by that.

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Speaker 1: So it's like a giant, furry spider is coming down

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Speaker 1: to some little part of my brain that sends off

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Speaker 1: an alarm, and it's really off putting sometimes until you

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Speaker 1: know the larger part, the executive functioning part of my

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Speaker 1: brain is like, it's a squirrel, don't worry, But there's

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Speaker 1: that one just zap of Like this is weird and

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Speaker 1: scary for a second, but it happens to me from

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Speaker 1: time to time when they come down the tree like that.

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Speaker 4: Well, it can be a little startling, you know, if

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Speaker 4: you're going to take out the trash or something and

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Speaker 4: your trash can is next to a big live oak

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Speaker 4: like ours is, and there are two or more squirrels

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Speaker 4: that are they seem I don't know what they're doing.

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Speaker 4: It seem like I have a beef with one another.

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Speaker 4: But maybe they're just playing chase. But when they're really

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Speaker 4: boogying up and down and around a tree right as

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Speaker 4: you walk upon it is it can be a little

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Speaker 4: bit like, oh okay, I.

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Speaker 1: Read that when one was chasing the other. It's a

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Speaker 1: part of the mating ritual.

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Speaker 4: Oh Okay, so that's embarrassing for them, right.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if that's across the board, but I

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Speaker 1: saw that in at least one.

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Speaker 2: Place, all right.

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Speaker 4: I like knowing that. Here's another cool thing about squirrels.

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Speaker 4: All kinds of squirrels have scent glands, and it depends

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Speaker 4: on the species where that scent gland is located. It

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Speaker 4: can be near their little bum hole. It can be

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Speaker 4: near their mouth in the corners of their mouth, can

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Speaker 4: be on their back. But in the case of the

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Speaker 4: tree squirrel, they have their scent glands on their feet

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Speaker 4: and sweat glands on the bottom of their feet. And

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Speaker 4: they are a squirrel that buries their food over large.

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Speaker 4: Large areas sometimes like up to twenty five acres can

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Speaker 4: be their habitat where they're bearing and hiding food, and

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Speaker 4: they are literally every time they walk to bury something,

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Speaker 4: they're leaving a little scent trail that they can go

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Speaker 4: back and pick up. Ideally, but it's not a perfect system.

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Speaker 4: Sometimes they will lose stuff and not be able to

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Speaker 4: go back. But what they have then done is planted

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Speaker 4: a tree.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, which brings up their huge ecological role, which is

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Speaker 1: like planting new forests, like keeping forests healthy by forgetting

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Speaker 1: about nuts. And the nut is actually a seed and

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Speaker 1: it grows into a new tree that the squirrel helped

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Speaker 1: move away from the tree.

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Speaker 2: It's amazing its range.

404
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Speaker 4: They're known as the gardeners of the forest.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and we taught we did a whole short stuff

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Speaker 1: on squirrels bearing nuts, and I remember one of the

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Speaker 1: things that came up was there was a study that

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Speaker 1: found that they if they know they're being watched by another.

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Speaker 2: Squirrel, they'll fake dig a hole.

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Speaker 1: And then won't drop the nut in it, And then

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Speaker 1: we'll go somewhere else and mislead a squirrel.

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Speaker 2: It's that they think is watching them.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, they'll look around first and be like, did anyone

414
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Speaker 4: see that? Yeah, I think I'm good.

415
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Speaker 2: Tod was watching. I better not drop the nut in

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Speaker 2: this hole. He'll come along.

417
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Speaker 4: So that's what the the I'm sorry, not flying, but

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Speaker 4: the tree squirrels. That's how they use their scent. The

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Speaker 4: ground squirrels, we should say, mainly use the scent glands

420
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Speaker 4: to mark their territory. And you know, because they're all

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Speaker 4: about their clan and their colony, to sort of mark

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Speaker 4: their territory and find out if someone is a part

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Speaker 4: of their clan.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And then also as far as sense go, I saw

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Speaker 1: some somewhere that some kinds of ground squirrels that are

427
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Speaker 1: prey to rattlesnakes will actually find shed rattlesnake skin rub

428
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Speaker 1: it on themselves. Oh wow, chew it up and rub

429
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Speaker 1: it on themselves to give themselves a rattlesnake scent to

430
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Speaker 1: throw off rattlesnakes.

431
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Speaker 2: They camouflage their scent.

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Speaker 4: That's pretty cool.

433
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Speaker 2: Yeah.

434
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Speaker 4: I wonder if they ever wear it and just like

435
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Speaker 4: fashion a couple of holes and stick their arms through.

436
00:22:36,960 --> 00:22:38,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they bragged that they killed it.

437
00:22:38,800 --> 00:22:42,440
Speaker 4: Yeah, have you man? I shouldn't even mention this. Yeah,

438
00:22:42,480 --> 00:22:43,239
Speaker 4: I'm gonna mention it.

439
00:22:43,840 --> 00:22:44,119
Speaker 2: Have you?

440
00:22:44,200 --> 00:22:46,560
Speaker 4: Because it is granted it is roadkill. But have you

441
00:22:46,600 --> 00:22:49,840
Speaker 4: ever seen the pictures of the squirrel roadkill with the

442
00:22:49,880 --> 00:22:57,000
Speaker 4: little G I Joe action figures? No, just look it up,

443
00:22:57,400 --> 00:23:00,840
Speaker 4: I can. They aren't squirrels at some one killed. It's

444
00:23:00,880 --> 00:23:03,840
Speaker 4: someone will take a roadkill picture of a squirrel and

445
00:23:03,840 --> 00:23:06,120
Speaker 4: they'll take the little G I Joe figures as if

446
00:23:06,400 --> 00:23:09,560
Speaker 4: they were big game hunters, and they'll have their guns

447
00:23:09,560 --> 00:23:11,800
Speaker 4: and they'll have like one leg up on the squirrel's head.

448
00:23:12,600 --> 00:23:14,800
Speaker 4: As if it was their trophy. And the squirrel looks

449
00:23:14,920 --> 00:23:18,120
Speaker 4: positively giant next to the little action figures, and it's

450
00:23:18,200 --> 00:23:18,960
Speaker 4: kind of funny.

451
00:23:19,080 --> 00:23:20,240
Speaker 2: I'll have to check that one out.

452
00:23:20,240 --> 00:23:21,960
Speaker 4: I don't want to encourage people. Maybe I shouldn't have

453
00:23:22,000 --> 00:23:22,560
Speaker 4: even said anything.

454
00:23:22,560 --> 00:23:24,399
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know if you're encouraging people to like

455
00:23:24,560 --> 00:23:29,560
Speaker 1: swerve onto a squirrel, you know, one guy or.

456
00:23:29,600 --> 00:23:31,880
Speaker 4: Kill a squirrel to do that. But maybe just took

457
00:23:31,920 --> 00:23:33,359
Speaker 4: it up on the internet. If you want to see that,

458
00:23:33,400 --> 00:23:34,159
Speaker 4: don't recreate it.

459
00:23:34,560 --> 00:23:36,679
Speaker 1: If you kill a squirrel and we find out about it,

460
00:23:36,720 --> 00:23:38,320
Speaker 1: we're coming to your house.

461
00:23:38,680 --> 00:23:42,640
Speaker 4: I know. Okay with a ghost of that squirrel. Yeah,

462
00:23:42,760 --> 00:23:45,679
Speaker 4: that will introduce to your attic you go.

463
00:23:47,160 --> 00:23:49,440
Speaker 2: So have we moved on to flying squirrels.

464
00:23:49,080 --> 00:23:51,800
Speaker 4: Yet, Yeah, let's do it. Those are you know the

465
00:23:51,800 --> 00:23:53,560
Speaker 4: old story when we had one growing up for a

466
00:23:53,600 --> 00:23:56,880
Speaker 4: little while. You probably don't remember, but my uncle gave

467
00:23:56,960 --> 00:23:59,639
Speaker 4: us his flying squirrel to watch for a while, and

468
00:23:59,680 --> 00:24:02,440
Speaker 4: he would leap from the curtains on the other side

469
00:24:02,440 --> 00:24:05,000
Speaker 4: of the room onto my shoulder. And then when we

470
00:24:05,040 --> 00:24:07,640
Speaker 4: went out of town, apparently they said the squirrel got out.

471
00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:10,240
Speaker 4: But now that I'm an adult, I realized that the cat

472
00:24:10,359 --> 00:24:14,400
Speaker 4: ate the squirrel. Oh man, yeah, just to recap that

473
00:24:14,600 --> 00:24:18,960
Speaker 4: childhood trauma. That's well okay, But for a little while,

474
00:24:19,000 --> 00:24:20,600
Speaker 4: we had a flying squirrel in our home.

475
00:24:21,800 --> 00:24:23,080
Speaker 2: For a brief shining moment.

476
00:24:23,119 --> 00:24:24,360
Speaker 4: That's the upshot.

477
00:24:24,640 --> 00:24:27,360
Speaker 1: So a flying squirrel, and I thought this. I thought

478
00:24:27,359 --> 00:24:31,240
Speaker 1: they were fairly rare. Apparently they're as common as tree

479
00:24:31,280 --> 00:24:34,560
Speaker 1: squirrels in some places. The reason that you think they're

480
00:24:34,640 --> 00:24:37,719
Speaker 1: rare is because they're nocturnal, so we're usually sleeping when

481
00:24:37,720 --> 00:24:38,600
Speaker 1: they're out and about.

482
00:24:38,840 --> 00:24:41,120
Speaker 4: I love thinking about those things just flying around all night.

483
00:24:41,720 --> 00:24:44,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, and flying is right, man, I saw Ed says

484
00:24:44,880 --> 00:24:46,800
Speaker 1: the thing glide up to one hundred and fifty feet.

485
00:24:46,800 --> 00:24:49,120
Speaker 1: I saw three hundred in some cases.

486
00:24:49,240 --> 00:24:49,560
Speaker 2: Wow.

487
00:24:50,200 --> 00:24:52,479
Speaker 1: And that's what they're doing. They're gliding. They're not flying.

488
00:24:52,520 --> 00:24:55,880
Speaker 1: They have no means of like propulsion. But they have

489
00:24:55,960 --> 00:24:59,040
Speaker 1: a skin flap. They've evolved a skin flap that is

490
00:24:59,800 --> 00:25:03,360
Speaker 1: you know the batsuit that people like you know, skydive with.

491
00:25:03,880 --> 00:25:06,040
Speaker 2: That's that is based basically one.

492
00:25:06,040 --> 00:25:11,000
Speaker 1: Hundred percent on the flying squirrel's membranes between its front

493
00:25:11,359 --> 00:25:16,160
Speaker 1: legs and hind legs that it can you know, spread

494
00:25:16,160 --> 00:25:18,520
Speaker 1: out when it jumps and it just catches the air.

495
00:25:18,560 --> 00:25:20,959
Speaker 1: And they can move it this way and that and

496
00:25:21,320 --> 00:25:23,920
Speaker 1: use their tail as a rudder and go one hundred

497
00:25:23,920 --> 00:25:26,959
Speaker 1: and fifty feet in a pretty purposeful direction too.

498
00:25:27,400 --> 00:25:28,879
Speaker 4: Did you say what the name of the flap was?

499
00:25:29,720 --> 00:25:29,840
Speaker 2: No?

500
00:25:30,359 --> 00:25:30,959
Speaker 4: Do you want to?

501
00:25:31,640 --> 00:25:31,680
Speaker 3: No?

502
00:25:31,800 --> 00:25:32,800
Speaker 2: I probably screwed it.

503
00:25:35,000 --> 00:25:36,800
Speaker 4: I'm gonna go with potagium.

504
00:25:37,320 --> 00:25:39,880
Speaker 2: That's great. What do they call that? Pada gayum?

505
00:25:41,400 --> 00:25:44,080
Speaker 4: I wonder what they call that in the in the

506
00:25:44,119 --> 00:25:48,320
Speaker 4: Flying Suit Bizz Extreme Flying Suit Biz. I don't know, and.

507
00:25:48,400 --> 00:25:51,520
Speaker 1: I think they call them batsuits, but that's that's a misnomer.

508
00:25:51,560 --> 00:25:53,840
Speaker 4: If you ask me those I gotta say. I mean,

509
00:25:53,880 --> 00:25:55,400
Speaker 4: I'm not into any of that stuff. I would never

510
00:25:55,440 --> 00:25:58,760
Speaker 4: do it, but those videos are amazing and it's oh,

511
00:25:58,800 --> 00:26:02,080
Speaker 4: I know, as humans have come I think to flying

512
00:26:02,160 --> 00:26:04,240
Speaker 4: it feels like agreed.

513
00:26:05,160 --> 00:26:06,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would have to have.

514
00:26:07,920 --> 00:26:11,359
Speaker 1: Probably a lobotomy to to actually try that. It would

515
00:26:11,359 --> 00:26:13,840
Speaker 1: take that radical of a personality change for me to

516
00:26:13,880 --> 00:26:14,239
Speaker 1: try it.

517
00:26:14,600 --> 00:26:16,520
Speaker 4: Well, And I mean sure that kind of thing that's

518
00:26:16,560 --> 00:26:19,520
Speaker 4: the most extreme, like years and years of training, yes,

519
00:26:19,680 --> 00:26:21,840
Speaker 4: skydiving training and stuff like that. You know, like run

520
00:26:21,920 --> 00:26:23,359
Speaker 4: jump into a batsuit?

521
00:26:23,600 --> 00:26:24,720
Speaker 2: No, no, no, definitely not.

522
00:26:24,800 --> 00:26:26,560
Speaker 1: But even if you do, you know, once you get

523
00:26:26,600 --> 00:26:29,359
Speaker 1: to that point, like, I can't imagine how dangerous that is.

524
00:26:29,400 --> 00:26:33,159
Speaker 1: You know, if you smack into something you're going really fast.

525
00:26:32,960 --> 00:26:36,040
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, your toast. Yeah, and that happens sadly.

526
00:26:36,680 --> 00:26:39,480
Speaker 1: But I get the impression that it's the rush is

527
00:26:39,480 --> 00:26:40,440
Speaker 1: worth the risk.

528
00:26:41,480 --> 00:26:47,200
Speaker 4: That's right. And speaking of risk, there are endangered flying squirrels,

529
00:26:47,760 --> 00:26:51,320
Speaker 4: the Carolina Northern flying squirrel. And we talked a little

530
00:26:51,320 --> 00:26:53,720
Speaker 4: bit about these little land bridges that are starting to

531
00:26:53,720 --> 00:26:59,040
Speaker 4: pop up in the United States over overpasses and freeway crossings.

532
00:26:59,320 --> 00:26:59,679
Speaker 2: Yeah.

533
00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:03,000
Speaker 4: I just read today there's one in LA that's opening

534
00:27:03,080 --> 00:27:06,320
Speaker 4: up that's like one hundred and sixty feet wide. I

535
00:27:06,320 --> 00:27:08,199
Speaker 4: can't remember the name of it. It's named after someone

536
00:27:08,880 --> 00:27:12,359
Speaker 4: and to allow cougars and you know, mountain lions to

537
00:27:12,520 --> 00:27:16,760
Speaker 4: pass and all kinds of animals, and they're using you know,

538
00:27:16,840 --> 00:27:20,719
Speaker 4: they have done studies for squirrels in that they found

539
00:27:20,800 --> 00:27:25,520
Speaker 4: tagged like radio tagged squirrels are foraging and building on

540
00:27:25,560 --> 00:27:28,880
Speaker 4: the other side of these massive freeways thanks to these bridges,

541
00:27:28,920 --> 00:27:30,120
Speaker 4: Like it's been proven to work.

542
00:27:30,520 --> 00:27:33,640
Speaker 1: Yeah for sure. I think it's called the Robert Evans

543
00:27:33,840 --> 00:27:36,000
Speaker 1: Memorial Animal Land Bridge.

544
00:27:36,240 --> 00:27:39,560
Speaker 4: Baby. Yeah, if only.

545
00:27:41,920 --> 00:27:42,000
Speaker 3: So.

546
00:27:42,800 --> 00:27:45,000
Speaker 1: That actually kind of leads us to a quote I

547
00:27:45,040 --> 00:27:49,119
Speaker 1: ran across Chuck because if you put like I was saying,

548
00:27:49,200 --> 00:27:51,400
Speaker 1: if you can kind of connect a tree to another tree,

549
00:27:51,640 --> 00:27:54,680
Speaker 1: which really ties into that rewilding episode because you're you're

550
00:27:54,760 --> 00:27:58,080
Speaker 1: using you're connecting core to core via corridor basically is

551
00:27:58,240 --> 00:28:02,480
Speaker 1: what they're doing with that. That there was an old

552
00:28:02,560 --> 00:28:06,040
Speaker 1: saying that before, well not too long ago, I think

553
00:28:06,080 --> 00:28:10,000
Speaker 1: into the eighteenth century, maybe even early nineteenth century, that

554
00:28:10,040 --> 00:28:14,199
Speaker 1: there was so many chestnut trees in North America that

555
00:28:14,280 --> 00:28:17,040
Speaker 1: a squirrel could make it from Maine to Georgia without

556
00:28:17,080 --> 00:28:18,240
Speaker 1: ever touching the ground.

557
00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:19,600
Speaker 4: Yeah, where did we cover that in?

558
00:28:19,920 --> 00:28:20,040
Speaker 3: Was it?

559
00:28:20,560 --> 00:28:21,360
Speaker 1: I don't remember?

560
00:28:21,720 --> 00:28:23,639
Speaker 4: I remember that Factoi. That's a great one.

561
00:28:24,200 --> 00:28:27,760
Speaker 1: So it really kind of goes to show like there

562
00:28:27,880 --> 00:28:30,639
Speaker 1: used to be a lot more forests in the United States,

563
00:28:30,640 --> 00:28:33,880
Speaker 1: but there were also a lot more squirrels because there's

564
00:28:33,920 --> 00:28:39,160
Speaker 1: a there's a positive correlation between mass producing trees, which

565
00:28:39,200 --> 00:28:45,400
Speaker 1: are chestnut, beech oak trees that produce nuts that squirrels

566
00:28:45,400 --> 00:28:51,400
Speaker 1: and other forest animals eat, and the number and population

567
00:28:51,520 --> 00:28:53,840
Speaker 1: density of squirrels in an area. You have a lot

568
00:28:53,880 --> 00:28:56,360
Speaker 1: of mass producing trees, you're going to have a lot

569
00:28:56,400 --> 00:28:59,680
Speaker 1: of squirrels because again, they fill their ecological niche to

570
00:28:59,720 --> 00:29:00,760
Speaker 1: base bursting.

571
00:29:01,760 --> 00:29:06,120
Speaker 4: Yeah, and they you know, bursting with food because they

572
00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:10,200
Speaker 4: are opportunistic eaters, is what Ed says. And that's a

573
00:29:10,240 --> 00:29:12,720
Speaker 4: pretty good way to say it. Because while they well,

574
00:29:12,720 --> 00:29:15,000
Speaker 4: obviously if they can get fruit or nuts and seeds,

575
00:29:15,040 --> 00:29:18,560
Speaker 4: that's the stock of their diet. But they will eat

576
00:29:18,600 --> 00:29:22,240
Speaker 4: whatever keeps them alive. They will eat insects and fungus,

577
00:29:22,280 --> 00:29:25,040
Speaker 4: and they actually spread fungus, which is great. Yeah, they

578
00:29:25,040 --> 00:29:28,320
Speaker 4: eat roots. They have they have found little tiny eggs

579
00:29:28,320 --> 00:29:31,400
Speaker 4: and little tiny birds and little tiny lizards in the

580
00:29:31,920 --> 00:29:37,680
Speaker 4: guts of squirrels, so they you know, technically are omnivores,

581
00:29:39,160 --> 00:29:42,600
Speaker 4: which is just to say squirrels are remarkable. That's staying alive,

582
00:29:42,640 --> 00:29:44,480
Speaker 4: and they will eat your garbage. They will eat whatever

583
00:29:44,520 --> 00:29:46,880
Speaker 4: they need to, but that's only if they're not finding

584
00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:49,720
Speaker 4: the nuts and the seeds and stuff like that, which

585
00:29:49,720 --> 00:29:52,640
Speaker 4: there are generally plenty plenty of in the United States.

586
00:29:53,120 --> 00:29:56,200
Speaker 1: And one reason that they're they're suited for nuts, or

587
00:29:56,200 --> 00:29:59,040
Speaker 1: that nuts are suited for them, is because they have

588
00:29:59,760 --> 00:30:02,360
Speaker 1: two sets of incisors. I believe it up and a

589
00:30:02,480 --> 00:30:06,560
Speaker 1: down is the technical term, and they grow constantly throughout

590
00:30:06,600 --> 00:30:10,080
Speaker 1: their lifetime. I think they grow something like, is this

591
00:30:10,160 --> 00:30:12,960
Speaker 1: even possible that I'm seeing it six inches a year?

592
00:30:13,960 --> 00:30:16,840
Speaker 4: Well, I mean they're constantly grinding them down, so I

593
00:30:16,880 --> 00:30:19,200
Speaker 4: think if a squirrel was in a coma, they could

594
00:30:19,240 --> 00:30:20,160
Speaker 4: have six inch fang.

595
00:30:20,320 --> 00:30:20,920
Speaker 2: That's crazy.

596
00:30:20,960 --> 00:30:24,000
Speaker 1: And then apparently if they don't continuously grind them down

597
00:30:24,320 --> 00:30:27,240
Speaker 1: and they kept growing, they would grow through the top

598
00:30:27,280 --> 00:30:30,840
Speaker 1: and the bottom of their face all a Lisa Simpson

599
00:30:30,880 --> 00:30:32,600
Speaker 1: that time she needed braces.

600
00:30:33,840 --> 00:30:34,640
Speaker 2: But that's crazy.

601
00:30:34,680 --> 00:30:38,000
Speaker 1: So they use these very very hard nuts, like a

602
00:30:38,120 --> 00:30:42,320
Speaker 1: chestnut or pecan or walnut shell to impart. It's a

603
00:30:42,360 --> 00:30:44,560
Speaker 1: food source. But as they're getting to the food source,

604
00:30:44,600 --> 00:30:47,360
Speaker 1: they're keeping their teeth ground down, which apparently they have

605
00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:48,680
Speaker 1: to do all the time.

606
00:30:49,400 --> 00:30:52,280
Speaker 4: That's pretty amazing. Squirrels also like a little sweet treat

607
00:30:52,320 --> 00:30:54,920
Speaker 4: every now and then. They have found red squirrels in

608
00:30:55,000 --> 00:30:58,240
Speaker 4: Maine that will tap sugar maple trees. They make little

609
00:30:58,240 --> 00:31:00,560
Speaker 4: bite marks in the tree and then and they just say,

610
00:31:00,560 --> 00:31:01,960
Speaker 4: all right, do your thing, and they come back a

611
00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:06,560
Speaker 4: few days later and that trap has hardened up and

612
00:31:06,640 --> 00:31:08,960
Speaker 4: run out a little bit. And that is just a little,

613
00:31:09,000 --> 00:31:10,360
Speaker 4: tiny sweet treat for a squirrel.

614
00:31:10,560 --> 00:31:13,760
Speaker 1: That's right, It's pretty awesome. They also found that Squirrels

615
00:31:13,800 --> 00:31:17,720
Speaker 1: can learn by observing other squirrels doing something, particularly finding

616
00:31:17,960 --> 00:31:21,280
Speaker 1: new ways to get food. Their adept at that.

617
00:31:21,880 --> 00:31:25,080
Speaker 4: Oh okay, so they see Todd doing something, they say,

618
00:31:25,160 --> 00:31:27,040
Speaker 4: not a bad idea, let's give that a shot.

619
00:31:27,360 --> 00:31:29,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, that Todd really came around.

620
00:31:30,080 --> 00:31:31,640
Speaker 4: Yeah, and if you'll notice, I think we kind of

621
00:31:31,640 --> 00:31:35,080
Speaker 4: skipped over this if we didn't mention Australia squirrels I

622
00:31:35,120 --> 00:31:37,720
Speaker 4: think used to be in Australia but aren't so much now.

623
00:31:38,720 --> 00:31:41,240
Speaker 4: And is it a mystery or is it just the

624
00:31:41,320 --> 00:31:44,480
Speaker 4: obvious that the Australians were like SIPs on mate.

625
00:31:45,440 --> 00:31:46,040
Speaker 2: I don't know.

626
00:31:46,120 --> 00:31:47,960
Speaker 1: I didn't see that anywhere, but I know that they

627
00:31:48,000 --> 00:31:52,120
Speaker 1: introduced the Eastern gray and then in Perth they introduced

628
00:31:52,160 --> 00:31:56,080
Speaker 1: the Indian palm, which is like if you mashed together

629
00:31:56,120 --> 00:31:58,240
Speaker 1: an Eastern gray squirrel in a chipmunk, that it would

630
00:31:58,280 --> 00:31:59,280
Speaker 1: be an Indian palm.

631
00:31:59,400 --> 00:31:59,560
Speaker 4: Yeah.

632
00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:03,000
Speaker 1: Well, but apparently they both died out. I don't know

633
00:32:03,040 --> 00:32:05,080
Speaker 1: if it's a mystery or not, like you're saying, but

634
00:32:05,120 --> 00:32:09,520
Speaker 1: supposedly there's some feral colonies that escape from zoos, at

635
00:32:09,640 --> 00:32:13,680
Speaker 1: least in Perth. So there are wild squirrels in Australia,

636
00:32:13,720 --> 00:32:17,040
Speaker 1: but they were introduced in the nineteenth century, which is

637
00:32:17,040 --> 00:32:19,840
Speaker 1: actually a trend, as we'll see. But I say before

638
00:32:19,880 --> 00:32:22,760
Speaker 1: we tackle all that, we take a break. How about that?

639
00:32:22,920 --> 00:32:24,680
Speaker 4: All right, Well we'll take the break and we'll talk

640
00:32:24,720 --> 00:32:26,440
Speaker 4: about squirrel migration right after this.

641
00:32:48,720 --> 00:32:51,760
Speaker 1: Okay, Chuck, so as I was saying, like back before

642
00:32:51,960 --> 00:32:54,800
Speaker 1: pre colonial days in particular, but also even into the

643
00:32:54,960 --> 00:32:58,480
Speaker 1: nineteenth century, I think even the nineteen sixties, there were

644
00:32:58,560 --> 00:33:04,320
Speaker 1: reports of a massive numbers of squirrels basically stampeding. Yea,

645
00:33:04,880 --> 00:33:07,840
Speaker 1: they call them squirrel migrations, and they have been documented

646
00:33:08,200 --> 00:33:10,800
Speaker 1: enough times that it's not an anomaly, but they are

647
00:33:10,840 --> 00:33:14,560
Speaker 1: fairly rare. And today they've kind of figured out that

648
00:33:14,880 --> 00:33:18,880
Speaker 1: there aren't dense enough populations of squirrels to ever have

649
00:33:18,920 --> 00:33:22,360
Speaker 1: a genuine like squirrel stampede like they had before. But

650
00:33:22,400 --> 00:33:24,760
Speaker 1: there used to be so many of them that every

651
00:33:24,760 --> 00:33:27,600
Speaker 1: once in a while, thousands to tens of thousands to

652
00:33:27,720 --> 00:33:31,440
Speaker 1: tends to tens of thousands of squirrels would pass generally

653
00:33:31,480 --> 00:33:35,200
Speaker 1: in like a big wave over an area. And apparently

654
00:33:35,240 --> 00:33:36,479
Speaker 1: it was quite a thing to see.

655
00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:41,200
Speaker 4: I imagine it was. And this happened because there would

656
00:33:41,240 --> 00:33:45,000
Speaker 4: just be a really big fruitful year for squirrel food

657
00:33:45,760 --> 00:33:49,200
Speaker 4: tons of availability, and they would you know, they would

658
00:33:49,200 --> 00:33:51,280
Speaker 4: boom in numbers because they go to where the food is.

659
00:33:51,800 --> 00:33:55,720
Speaker 4: And usually if that is followed by or I guess historically,

660
00:33:55,760 --> 00:33:59,120
Speaker 4: when that was followed by a really bad year like

661
00:33:59,160 --> 00:34:01,560
Speaker 4: the rain you know, didn't work out so great for

662
00:34:01,760 --> 00:34:05,440
Speaker 4: producing nuts and seeds and stuff and fruit, that all

663
00:34:05,480 --> 00:34:07,640
Speaker 4: of a sudden, you've got a ton of squirrels in

664
00:34:07,680 --> 00:34:10,919
Speaker 4: an area that are all looking around, going, oh, what's

665
00:34:10,960 --> 00:34:13,920
Speaker 4: the deal. And they're opportunitists, so they said, all right,

666
00:34:13,920 --> 00:34:15,200
Speaker 4: we're getting out of here. We're going to where the

667
00:34:15,200 --> 00:34:19,120
Speaker 4: food is. Let's go everybody. And they would do it

668
00:34:19,160 --> 00:34:19,480
Speaker 4: all at.

669
00:34:19,440 --> 00:34:22,160
Speaker 1: Once, yeah, all at once for some reason. And so

670
00:34:22,239 --> 00:34:25,960
Speaker 1: there's migrations. They would be they'd be running through the forest,

671
00:34:26,000 --> 00:34:28,760
Speaker 1: they'd be running across fields, they'd be swimming across rivers,

672
00:34:28,800 --> 00:34:33,080
Speaker 1: and apparently, in at least one account, I saw they

673
00:34:33,120 --> 00:34:35,759
Speaker 1: would be gulped up by bass in the rivers. And

674
00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:38,839
Speaker 1: I can't imagine seeing anything worse than a squirrel being

675
00:34:38,840 --> 00:34:40,400
Speaker 1: eaten by a fish.

676
00:34:40,400 --> 00:34:41,440
Speaker 4: That seems unnatural.

677
00:34:41,800 --> 00:34:43,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, but there were so many of them. And this

678
00:34:43,520 --> 00:34:47,200
Speaker 1: is also at a time where squirrels were roundly among

679
00:34:47,280 --> 00:34:54,319
Speaker 1: basically everyone living in America viewed as vermin as invaders,

680
00:34:54,440 --> 00:34:57,359
Speaker 1: as things that were unwanted, but also a tasty food

681
00:34:57,400 --> 00:35:00,000
Speaker 1: source too. Yeah, So anytime there was a squirrel stamp,

682
00:35:01,120 --> 00:35:03,760
Speaker 1: the yokels would run out with their sticks and bags

683
00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:06,160
Speaker 1: and beat squirrels to death and then cook them and

684
00:35:06,239 --> 00:35:08,279
Speaker 1: sell their pelts and do all sorts of things with them.

685
00:35:08,719 --> 00:35:10,520
Speaker 1: And one of the reasons why they were viewed as

686
00:35:10,600 --> 00:35:13,960
Speaker 1: vermin chuck is because on these squirrel migrations and other

687
00:35:14,040 --> 00:35:15,799
Speaker 1: times where they were just you know, if you were

688
00:35:15,880 --> 00:35:20,040
Speaker 1: unlucky with your planting, those squirrels might see as a

689
00:35:20,040 --> 00:35:22,520
Speaker 1: food source the crops you just planted all those seeds

690
00:35:22,560 --> 00:35:25,280
Speaker 1: and would dig them up and ruin your year's crops

691
00:35:25,280 --> 00:35:28,440
Speaker 1: in a day or so. So people didn't like squirrels

692
00:35:28,440 --> 00:35:30,800
Speaker 1: for a very long time. And this idea of squirrels

693
00:35:30,840 --> 00:35:33,560
Speaker 1: being everywhere, these little mammals living among us, like you

694
00:35:33,600 --> 00:35:38,400
Speaker 1: were talking about earlier, that's fairly new, and that's actually

695
00:35:38,520 --> 00:35:43,759
Speaker 1: very deliberate and purposeful, because squirrels were basically gone up

696
00:35:43,840 --> 00:35:46,839
Speaker 1: until about the mid to late nineteenth century in America.

697
00:35:47,400 --> 00:35:51,359
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, between being hunted because people hated them

698
00:35:52,040 --> 00:35:55,360
Speaker 4: on their farms, like you said, people and people still

699
00:35:55,400 --> 00:35:59,680
Speaker 4: and like generally in certain parts of like Appalachia, still

700
00:35:59,719 --> 00:36:02,080
Speaker 4: eat squirrel on the menu. It is a little gamey

701
00:36:02,080 --> 00:36:04,000
Speaker 4: from what I'm told, I'm never going to eat a squirrel,

702
00:36:04,360 --> 00:36:06,520
Speaker 4: but they still use pelts. But that kind of, you know,

703
00:36:06,880 --> 00:36:09,120
Speaker 4: just like they would eat any larger mammal and use

704
00:36:09,160 --> 00:36:12,600
Speaker 4: their pelts. They would just get crafty with you know,

705
00:36:12,840 --> 00:36:16,000
Speaker 4: as small as a squirrel. And certainly in times of

706
00:36:16,719 --> 00:36:20,200
Speaker 4: you know, real need, you know, small rodents would come

707
00:36:20,200 --> 00:36:23,879
Speaker 4: in handy on the menu back then. But they were

708
00:36:23,920 --> 00:36:28,719
Speaker 4: almost gone. We started growing more urban in the eighteen hundreds, obviously,

709
00:36:29,440 --> 00:36:32,040
Speaker 4: and they were killing squirrels as fast as they could.

710
00:36:32,680 --> 00:36:35,279
Speaker 4: And in the eighteen forties and fifties there were so

711
00:36:35,400 --> 00:36:41,239
Speaker 4: few squirrels that they were introduced to city parks, but

712
00:36:41,360 --> 00:36:43,800
Speaker 4: not many. At first. They were just like this weird

713
00:36:43,880 --> 00:36:46,719
Speaker 4: curiosity where you would go out kind of like bird

714
00:36:46,760 --> 00:36:49,120
Speaker 4: watching and you would like try to spot a squirrel

715
00:36:49,160 --> 00:36:52,680
Speaker 4: running around because it was such a novel thing. But

716
00:36:52,719 --> 00:36:55,160
Speaker 4: then by the time Frederick law Olmsted, who by the way,

717
00:36:55,200 --> 00:36:59,080
Speaker 4: deserves his own podcasts, came along and really introduced the

718
00:36:59,120 --> 00:37:01,720
Speaker 4: idea of these really large city parks and urban parks.

719
00:37:02,640 --> 00:37:06,440
Speaker 4: They introduced a lot of squirrels to these parks and

720
00:37:06,480 --> 00:37:09,239
Speaker 4: they really really like that. That's kind of why we

721
00:37:09,239 --> 00:37:11,640
Speaker 4: have the squirrels we have today, was from this movement

722
00:37:11,680 --> 00:37:14,640
Speaker 4: to reintroduce them in a big way to urban parks.

723
00:37:14,960 --> 00:37:17,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean we talked kind of a lot

724
00:37:17,080 --> 00:37:20,200
Speaker 1: about that whole idea in our Central Park episode, This

725
00:37:20,320 --> 00:37:22,719
Speaker 1: idea that you know, they just kept building the city

726
00:37:22,760 --> 00:37:24,439
Speaker 1: and building the city and building the city, and people

727
00:37:24,440 --> 00:37:27,239
Speaker 1: started going crazy because there weren't green spaces. So that

728
00:37:28,480 --> 00:37:31,120
Speaker 1: brought the parks in, and then the idea of adding

729
00:37:31,160 --> 00:37:33,560
Speaker 1: animals to the park just to kind of naturalize it

730
00:37:33,600 --> 00:37:37,319
Speaker 1: even more. That squirrels played a huge role in that.

731
00:37:38,120 --> 00:37:40,640
Speaker 1: And not only you know, in Central Park, but also

732
00:37:40,840 --> 00:37:43,560
Speaker 1: it started out and I believe Philadelphia and then followed

733
00:37:43,560 --> 00:37:47,800
Speaker 1: by Boston, and so by the mid to late nineteenth century,

734
00:37:48,120 --> 00:37:51,480
Speaker 1: that's when squirrels started to re establish themselves and the

735
00:37:51,520 --> 00:37:55,160
Speaker 1: way that people saw squirrels started to change too, And

736
00:37:55,200 --> 00:37:59,799
Speaker 1: there was this idea that they weren't vermin anymore. Don't

737
00:37:59,840 --> 00:38:02,880
Speaker 1: you them, Please try not to hit them with a stick. Instead,

738
00:38:03,160 --> 00:38:05,360
Speaker 1: let's go to the park, spend some time outside and

739
00:38:05,400 --> 00:38:08,360
Speaker 1: bring some nuts with you and maybe feed the squirrels,

740
00:38:08,920 --> 00:38:10,480
Speaker 1: and not only you feed the squirrels, but you got

741
00:38:10,480 --> 00:38:12,480
Speaker 1: a little kid. That little kid wants to hit that

742
00:38:12,480 --> 00:38:15,640
Speaker 1: squirrel with a stick so bad because kids are awful

743
00:38:15,760 --> 00:38:16,160
Speaker 1: like that.

744
00:38:16,200 --> 00:38:16,719
Speaker 4: Good luck.

745
00:38:17,160 --> 00:38:20,960
Speaker 1: You can actually use squirrels feeding squirrels as a way

746
00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:25,600
Speaker 1: to teach kids to have compassion, to be upstanding morally,

747
00:38:25,719 --> 00:38:28,920
Speaker 1: to have charity. And that was kind of how the

748
00:38:29,360 --> 00:38:33,640
Speaker 1: whole interaction between humans and squirrels was kind of framed

749
00:38:34,239 --> 00:38:37,240
Speaker 1: around that time, like the late nineteenth early twentieth century.

750
00:38:37,480 --> 00:38:42,240
Speaker 4: Yeah, the Boy Scout co founder Ernest Thompson's Seaton said

751
00:38:42,719 --> 00:38:46,560
Speaker 4: that squirrels, in introducing them to boys in general, would say,

752
00:38:46,719 --> 00:38:50,719
Speaker 4: would cure them of their tendency toward cruelty. But I said,

753
00:38:50,719 --> 00:38:52,399
Speaker 4: good luck a second ago. How do you hit it?

754
00:38:52,680 --> 00:38:54,759
Speaker 4: I mean, I guess if there's a stampede. But you

755
00:38:54,800 --> 00:38:56,600
Speaker 4: show me a kid that can get a squirrel and

756
00:38:56,680 --> 00:38:59,960
Speaker 4: hit it with a stick, and that's a future OLYMPI

757
00:39:00,080 --> 00:39:02,880
Speaker 4: In sure, there's no way. Those things are so fast.

758
00:39:04,080 --> 00:39:05,920
Speaker 4: But don't try to do it, kids, definitely.

759
00:39:05,719 --> 00:39:08,279
Speaker 1: No, don't even practice that. Don't try to qualify for

760
00:39:08,320 --> 00:39:10,239
Speaker 1: the Olympics. And that because you'll show up to the

761
00:39:10,280 --> 00:39:13,400
Speaker 1: Olympics and'll be like, we don't have that, that's not

762
00:39:13,640 --> 00:39:14,840
Speaker 1: one of our sports is what.

763
00:39:14,840 --> 00:39:16,040
Speaker 4: Do you think you says Australia.

764
00:39:17,040 --> 00:39:17,279
Speaker 2: Right.

765
00:39:18,760 --> 00:39:21,360
Speaker 4: So these days, you know, we've kind of come full

766
00:39:21,400 --> 00:39:26,919
Speaker 4: circle into just sort of letting squirrels be there. Are

767
00:39:27,280 --> 00:39:29,440
Speaker 4: you know, if you're a hunter in the United States,

768
00:39:30,400 --> 00:39:33,600
Speaker 4: and that may be the tradition in your family if

769
00:39:33,640 --> 00:39:37,040
Speaker 4: you live out in the country, to start off your

770
00:39:37,160 --> 00:39:40,880
Speaker 4: child with hunting squirrels with a little twenty two rifle

771
00:39:41,000 --> 00:39:45,360
Speaker 4: or something as practice to teach young hunters. I'm certainly

772
00:39:45,440 --> 00:39:46,800
Speaker 4: not into that, but I'm not going to judge you

773
00:39:46,840 --> 00:39:48,919
Speaker 4: if that's your thing. And like I said, people still

774
00:39:48,960 --> 00:39:55,160
Speaker 4: do eat squirrel in certain parts of the United States today.

775
00:39:55,280 --> 00:39:56,920
Speaker 4: I guess we can talk. I mean, we found a

776
00:39:56,920 --> 00:39:58,240
Speaker 4: lot of extra fun stuff.

777
00:40:00,040 --> 00:40:00,600
Speaker 2: Let's talk about.

778
00:40:00,640 --> 00:40:03,440
Speaker 1: So we were talking about how they're viewed in America.

779
00:40:04,440 --> 00:40:06,480
Speaker 1: Depending on where you are in the world, depending on

780
00:40:06,520 --> 00:40:08,960
Speaker 1: the squirrel you're talking about, they're actually they can be

781
00:40:09,040 --> 00:40:12,719
Speaker 1: viewed quite negatively. I remember in our Rewilding episode we

782
00:40:12,760 --> 00:40:16,200
Speaker 1: talked about how Eastern gray squirrels are considered an invasive

783
00:40:16,239 --> 00:40:21,560
Speaker 1: species in Italy, where they call them Americans killer squirrels.

784
00:40:22,560 --> 00:40:25,760
Speaker 1: And there's also an issue with Eastern gray squirrels in Europe,

785
00:40:25,840 --> 00:40:29,400
Speaker 1: where they've killed off most of the Eurasian red squirrels

786
00:40:29,440 --> 00:40:33,200
Speaker 1: over there. They've just out competed them. It's not like

787
00:40:33,239 --> 00:40:36,399
Speaker 1: they've you know, choked them or anything like that. They

788
00:40:36,600 --> 00:40:39,879
Speaker 1: just they're like almost twice as big, they're a lot

789
00:40:39,920 --> 00:40:44,120
Speaker 1: more ornery, and they've just kind of diminished the number

790
00:40:44,200 --> 00:40:47,759
Speaker 1: of Eurasian red squirrels in the UK so much so

791
00:40:47,840 --> 00:40:51,640
Speaker 1: that three quarters of the population lives in Scotland. And

792
00:40:52,280 --> 00:40:55,480
Speaker 1: I would just like to direct everybody to the Scottish

793
00:40:55,520 --> 00:41:01,160
Speaker 1: Squirrel's website. Go to Scottish Squirrels dot org UK and

794
00:41:01,239 --> 00:41:04,440
Speaker 1: this is very important. Slash about and on their about

795
00:41:04,480 --> 00:41:08,480
Speaker 1: page the header image is maybe the cutest squirrel you'll

796
00:41:08,480 --> 00:41:09,080
Speaker 1: ever see.

797
00:41:08,920 --> 00:41:09,880
Speaker 2: In your entire life.

798
00:41:09,960 --> 00:41:11,040
Speaker 4: Is that the one you sent me?

799
00:41:11,080 --> 00:41:15,160
Speaker 2: And Jerry, Yes, isn't that the cutest squirrel ever?

800
00:41:16,200 --> 00:41:19,279
Speaker 4: It's pretty cute. You also sent something else. If you

801
00:41:19,320 --> 00:41:23,760
Speaker 4: go to RSPCA dot org dot UK, slash Advice and Welfare,

802
00:41:23,800 --> 00:41:29,520
Speaker 4: slash wildlife, slash animals, slash gray squirrels, slash feeding, or

803
00:41:29,520 --> 00:41:31,960
Speaker 4: you could just Google feeding squirrels and using nest boxes,

804
00:41:32,000 --> 00:41:34,000
Speaker 4: you're gonna see a squirrel with a chicken wing in

805
00:41:34,040 --> 00:41:34,480
Speaker 4: its mouth.

806
00:41:35,920 --> 00:41:36,600
Speaker 2: That's pretty good.

807
00:41:37,320 --> 00:41:39,520
Speaker 1: It's better than a bass eating a squirrel, I'll tell

808
00:41:39,560 --> 00:41:39,959
Speaker 1: you that.

809
00:41:40,960 --> 00:41:42,759
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a good article you sent because it talks

810
00:41:42,760 --> 00:41:45,680
Speaker 4: about if you like squirrels around, which I certainly do,

811
00:41:45,719 --> 00:41:49,600
Speaker 4: creating a good habitat for them. Trees obviously it is

812
00:41:49,640 --> 00:41:52,239
Speaker 4: a good thing to have. Not cutting down trees is

813
00:41:52,239 --> 00:41:55,000
Speaker 4: a great thing to do if you can avoid it. Yeah,

814
00:41:55,040 --> 00:41:58,880
Speaker 4: And then having squirrel safe bird feeders. And this means

815
00:41:59,280 --> 00:42:01,520
Speaker 4: not that the squirrel can't get to that seed, because they,

816
00:42:01,640 --> 00:42:04,399
Speaker 4: as you have attested, they will find a way. Life

817
00:42:04,440 --> 00:42:08,120
Speaker 4: finds a way, but it don't won't trap the squirrel

818
00:42:08,160 --> 00:42:08,879
Speaker 4: inside of it.

819
00:42:09,320 --> 00:42:12,400
Speaker 1: No, that's a big one too. They also kind of

820
00:42:12,400 --> 00:42:16,480
Speaker 1: get into they get all Macbeth or Hamlet, which one

821
00:42:16,600 --> 00:42:17,480
Speaker 1: was to be or not to be?

822
00:42:19,360 --> 00:42:20,279
Speaker 4: Why you asking me?

823
00:42:20,960 --> 00:42:23,840
Speaker 1: Because they get all Hamlet or Macbeth on whether or

824
00:42:23,920 --> 00:42:30,319
Speaker 1: not to feed squirrels. You go, so they're like, you

825
00:42:30,400 --> 00:42:33,400
Speaker 1: could feed squirrels, but really you shouldn't. And the RSPCA

826
00:42:33,560 --> 00:42:37,440
Speaker 1: takes I think a pretty sensible tact, which is build

827
00:42:37,440 --> 00:42:39,520
Speaker 1: a habitat for the squirrels, and that you're planting the

828
00:42:39,600 --> 00:42:41,640
Speaker 1: right kind of trees that provide a place for them

829
00:42:41,719 --> 00:42:43,600
Speaker 1: to nest in a place for them to get food,

830
00:42:43,680 --> 00:42:45,759
Speaker 1: and then just step back and enjoy them.

831
00:42:45,880 --> 00:42:46,640
Speaker 2: That's right enough.

832
00:42:46,960 --> 00:42:49,279
Speaker 1: If you're like you know, me and Moe and you

833
00:42:49,320 --> 00:42:51,080
Speaker 1: go on walks or whatever and you want to feed

834
00:42:51,080 --> 00:42:53,640
Speaker 1: the squirrels, there are some things that are better for

835
00:42:53,719 --> 00:42:56,440
Speaker 1: squirrels than others, and it's basically you want to give

836
00:42:56,480 --> 00:43:01,080
Speaker 1: them what they would naturally eat, which is masked, unshelled

837
00:43:01,160 --> 00:43:05,600
Speaker 1: nuts like walnuts, chestnuts, acorns, hazel nuts, that kind of thing.

838
00:43:05,719 --> 00:43:08,040
Speaker 4: Some seats probably, huh.

839
00:43:07,719 --> 00:43:10,279
Speaker 1: Yes, but not black safflower seeds. I saw that if

840
00:43:10,320 --> 00:43:12,320
Speaker 1: you were one of those people who can't stand squirrels

841
00:43:12,400 --> 00:43:17,680
Speaker 1: raiding your bird feeder, black safflower seeds are. They'll eat them,

842
00:43:17,719 --> 00:43:20,960
Speaker 1: but they're not crazy about them, and most birds like

843
00:43:21,120 --> 00:43:24,120
Speaker 1: them instead. So that's one way to do it. But

844
00:43:24,160 --> 00:43:26,839
Speaker 1: you can also feed them vegetables too, and chuck. They

845
00:43:26,840 --> 00:43:30,080
Speaker 1: included this little tip that I didn't realize, but if

846
00:43:30,120 --> 00:43:32,600
Speaker 1: you're feeding squirrels or leaving food out for squirrels in

847
00:43:32,600 --> 00:43:34,400
Speaker 1: your yard and you have a garden that you care about,

848
00:43:34,840 --> 00:43:36,719
Speaker 1: you don't really want the squirrel taking the food and

849
00:43:36,719 --> 00:43:39,080
Speaker 1: them burying it. Elsewhere. So they said, if you're going

850
00:43:39,120 --> 00:43:43,600
Speaker 1: to feed them fruits and vegetables shredded, because the squirrels

851
00:43:43,680 --> 00:43:44,920
Speaker 1: is going to eat it there, it's not going to

852
00:43:44,960 --> 00:43:45,680
Speaker 1: try to bury it.

853
00:43:45,760 --> 00:43:46,760
Speaker 2: I thought that was smart.

854
00:43:46,920 --> 00:43:48,879
Speaker 4: Yeah, And if you have the nuts, don't give them

855
00:43:49,280 --> 00:43:55,040
Speaker 4: like honey roasted almonds, like unsweetened, unsalted stuff. I have

856
00:43:55,120 --> 00:43:57,480
Speaker 4: set up, you know, have a campcam at the family

857
00:43:57,520 --> 00:44:01,160
Speaker 4: camp trail cam, and it's it's keyed in on my

858
00:44:01,360 --> 00:44:05,440
Speaker 4: deer feeder that I got, which is corn. And I've

859
00:44:05,480 --> 00:44:09,320
Speaker 4: seen one deer, but almost every night I have scores

860
00:44:09,360 --> 00:44:13,080
Speaker 4: of raccoons nice and almost every day, well every day

861
00:44:13,440 --> 00:44:19,040
Speaker 4: I have squirrels, crows, and now daily turkeys visiting. Oh

862
00:44:19,239 --> 00:44:22,640
Speaker 4: neat lots and lots of turkeys. So I don't care

863
00:44:22,680 --> 00:44:25,040
Speaker 4: that the deer aren't visiting. It's all kinds of animals

864
00:44:25,040 --> 00:44:26,640
Speaker 4: are coming around. It's always fun to watch on the

865
00:44:26,640 --> 00:44:27,080
Speaker 4: camp cam.

866
00:44:27,480 --> 00:44:29,759
Speaker 1: That is very cool. One thing you want to be

867
00:44:29,800 --> 00:44:33,560
Speaker 1: careful with with peanuts too, is giving them raw peanuts

868
00:44:33,600 --> 00:44:38,640
Speaker 1: because peanuts can carry an aff litoxin, which is very

869
00:44:39,360 --> 00:44:41,480
Speaker 1: It's not good. It's not good for squirrels, it's not

870
00:44:41,520 --> 00:44:44,480
Speaker 1: good for humans either. It's a type of fungus. I

871
00:44:44,480 --> 00:44:48,080
Speaker 1: think that actually is not only carcin carcina just that

872
00:44:48,160 --> 00:44:52,200
Speaker 1: can actually like just kill you on the spot neurologically speaking.

873
00:44:52,719 --> 00:44:57,120
Speaker 1: So you actually want roasted peanuts but not salted or

874
00:44:57,160 --> 00:45:02,560
Speaker 1: anything like that, sow like plain roasted peanuts or what's

875
00:45:02,600 --> 00:45:05,280
Speaker 1: even better because it helps with their teeth, are mass

876
00:45:05,360 --> 00:45:08,279
Speaker 1: nuts again like pecans, walnuts, that kind of stuff. But

877
00:45:08,440 --> 00:45:10,560
Speaker 1: a lot of people say don't feed squirrels because you're

878
00:45:10,600 --> 00:45:13,960
Speaker 1: actually what you're doing is, as we've seen, if squirrels

879
00:45:14,000 --> 00:45:15,279
Speaker 1: know that there's a lot of food.

880
00:45:15,040 --> 00:45:17,239
Speaker 2: They're going to mate mate mate mate, and.

881
00:45:17,200 --> 00:45:18,879
Speaker 1: There's going to be a lot of squirrels, and they're

882
00:45:18,920 --> 00:45:23,400
Speaker 1: going to become dependent on that additional food supply, and

883
00:45:23,680 --> 00:45:25,799
Speaker 1: they might start showing up at your neighbor's house, they

884
00:45:25,840 --> 00:45:29,160
Speaker 1: might start burrowing into your attic. There's just a lot

885
00:45:29,160 --> 00:45:33,279
Speaker 1: of there's a lot of things that to take into consideration.

886
00:45:33,400 --> 00:45:35,880
Speaker 4: I guess, yeah, well, the family camp, there's nothing but

887
00:45:35,920 --> 00:45:37,760
Speaker 4: would so I hope we get overrun.

888
00:45:38,520 --> 00:45:41,200
Speaker 1: So I agree with you. So you've found a couple

889
00:45:41,200 --> 00:45:45,200
Speaker 1: of cool things, including why squirrels like seem to dash

890
00:45:45,400 --> 00:45:47,400
Speaker 1: in front of your car when you're driving.

891
00:45:47,600 --> 00:45:51,600
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, So and again I love that we've just

892
00:45:51,600 --> 00:45:53,719
Speaker 4: finally found answers for this stuff, because this is kind

893
00:45:53,719 --> 00:45:57,239
Speaker 4: of a fun, non obnoxious fact to jump on to

894
00:45:57,320 --> 00:46:01,719
Speaker 4: drop on someone. If you're driving around a neighborhood and

895
00:46:01,760 --> 00:46:03,640
Speaker 4: the squirrel does that thing and people go, why do

896
00:46:03,719 --> 00:46:06,279
Speaker 4: squirrels do that, we can say, well, it's actually an

897
00:46:06,280 --> 00:46:11,319
Speaker 4: evolutionary instinct to get away from a predator. So if

898
00:46:11,360 --> 00:46:15,040
Speaker 4: you run out and you initially freeze when there's a predator,

899
00:46:15,760 --> 00:46:18,480
Speaker 4: the predator is sort of like a football player waiting

900
00:46:18,880 --> 00:46:21,839
Speaker 4: for the defensive player to make their move, and then

901
00:46:21,920 --> 00:46:24,680
Speaker 4: you go the opposite way with a little juke, And

902
00:46:24,680 --> 00:46:27,160
Speaker 4: that's what the squirrel's doing. They go out, they freeze

903
00:46:27,200 --> 00:46:29,960
Speaker 4: when they see that car, and if it was a predator,

904
00:46:30,000 --> 00:46:31,680
Speaker 4: they would wait on the predator to sort of make

905
00:46:31,680 --> 00:46:33,799
Speaker 4: a move and then they can quickly go in a

906
00:46:33,840 --> 00:46:37,680
Speaker 4: direction that really comes in handy when it's a predator.

907
00:46:37,719 --> 00:46:40,040
Speaker 4: When it's a car that's going, you know, generally in

908
00:46:40,040 --> 00:46:43,560
Speaker 4: a big, hulking straight line, it's not the same thing.

909
00:46:43,600 --> 00:46:45,840
Speaker 4: But a squirrel has a squirrel brain and it doesn't

910
00:46:45,840 --> 00:46:49,399
Speaker 4: realize that. So that's why a squirrel will jump out

911
00:46:49,400 --> 00:46:51,560
Speaker 4: in a street, see a car and just stop They're

912
00:46:51,600 --> 00:46:55,080
Speaker 4: not dumb. They're waiting on you to make some hawk

913
00:46:55,239 --> 00:46:58,719
Speaker 4: like move, which doesn't happen in the car. So what

914
00:46:58,800 --> 00:47:02,080
Speaker 4: you do is you just slow down and check your

915
00:47:02,120 --> 00:47:03,880
Speaker 4: rearview mirror. Don't see him on the brakes or anything.

916
00:47:03,920 --> 00:47:07,839
Speaker 4: But you know, they're everywhere. And I've hit I think

917
00:47:07,880 --> 00:47:11,279
Speaker 4: maybe two squirrels in my adult life, so it's not

918
00:47:11,400 --> 00:47:13,760
Speaker 4: like the most common thing to run over a squirrel.

919
00:47:14,520 --> 00:47:16,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, I ran over one once and my brother in

920
00:47:16,560 --> 00:47:19,040
Speaker 1: law said that he was on his way to buy

921
00:47:19,040 --> 00:47:22,160
Speaker 1: a birthday present for his young kid who was waiting

922
00:47:22,239 --> 00:47:24,880
Speaker 1: forever for their dad to come back for his birthday

923
00:47:25,040 --> 00:47:26,120
Speaker 1: present for his party.

924
00:47:26,600 --> 00:47:28,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was not helpful.

925
00:47:30,200 --> 00:47:33,399
Speaker 4: And what about these black squirrels. Emily and I were

926
00:47:33,440 --> 00:47:37,520
Speaker 4: taking a walk through Brooklyn one day and saw a black, black,

927
00:47:37,560 --> 00:47:40,600
Speaker 4: black squirrel, not just a hint of black, and it

928
00:47:40,680 --> 00:47:42,359
Speaker 4: was the coolest thing I've ever seen. And I've since

929
00:47:42,400 --> 00:47:44,480
Speaker 4: seen a few more here and there in New York.

930
00:47:44,600 --> 00:47:46,560
Speaker 4: And we had the answer there too, right.

931
00:47:48,480 --> 00:47:52,759
Speaker 1: Yes, they seemed to be so they used to think

932
00:47:52,760 --> 00:47:55,640
Speaker 1: that they were freaks of nature. I think, as one

933
00:47:56,520 --> 00:47:59,839
Speaker 1: naturalist put it, like years and years ago, and somebody said,

934
00:48:00,040 --> 00:48:01,880
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's true. I think these actually

935
00:48:01,920 --> 00:48:05,799
Speaker 1: might have been the dominant version. They seem to be

936
00:48:05,840 --> 00:48:09,359
Speaker 1: closely related to Eastern grays, if not just a type

937
00:48:09,360 --> 00:48:11,839
Speaker 1: of Eastern gray, like a different breed of that species.

938
00:48:12,880 --> 00:48:15,759
Speaker 1: But they were saying they used to possibly be the

939
00:48:15,760 --> 00:48:19,280
Speaker 1: dominant version and they got edged out by the Eastern gray,

940
00:48:19,719 --> 00:48:24,560
Speaker 1: and so's they're there, they're just kind of infrequently. They

941
00:48:24,600 --> 00:48:29,040
Speaker 1: infrequently appear, but there are parts of North America where

942
00:48:29,040 --> 00:48:31,800
Speaker 1: they seem to populate more than others, like New York.

943
00:48:32,440 --> 00:48:35,480
Speaker 1: You mean, I used to see them in DC, Toronto.

944
00:48:35,560 --> 00:48:39,239
Speaker 1: They're all over Toronto, in Ontario in general, from what

945
00:48:39,320 --> 00:48:42,560
Speaker 1: I understand. So it seems like from what I could tell,

946
00:48:42,600 --> 00:48:45,640
Speaker 1: that they think that they're they were there already and

947
00:48:45,719 --> 00:48:47,440
Speaker 1: now we're just kind of seeing them in like this

948
00:48:47,520 --> 00:48:51,480
Speaker 1: kind of moment in time where their numbers have diminished tremendously,

949
00:48:51,480 --> 00:48:53,640
Speaker 1: where if we went back in time we might see

950
00:48:53,680 --> 00:48:55,680
Speaker 1: a lot more. Is Does that seem accurate?

951
00:48:56,040 --> 00:48:58,920
Speaker 4: Yeah? I mean, it's just genetics. It's a recessive gene

952
00:48:58,960 --> 00:49:03,839
Speaker 4: that causes an ab normal pigmentation, and you will you know,

953
00:49:03,920 --> 00:49:06,320
Speaker 4: you're you're only going to get more of that recessive gene.

954
00:49:06,640 --> 00:49:11,520
Speaker 4: If these squirrels or any you know, creature is reproducing

955
00:49:11,680 --> 00:49:14,000
Speaker 4: in a in a smaller area. So if you've got

956
00:49:14,040 --> 00:49:17,640
Speaker 4: to contain population, like let's say an island like New

957
00:49:17,719 --> 00:49:21,919
Speaker 4: York or apparently Roosevelt Island has a lot of them, Yeah,

958
00:49:22,400 --> 00:49:25,840
Speaker 4: you're just gonna see more of them. So, uh, DC

959
00:49:26,280 --> 00:49:29,359
Speaker 4: is a little not inexplicable, but it makes more sense

960
00:49:29,360 --> 00:49:32,480
Speaker 4: in New York because you're just gonna get more, you know,

961
00:49:33,360 --> 00:49:36,879
Speaker 4: more of this recessive gene happening in a area.

962
00:49:37,520 --> 00:49:39,040
Speaker 2: So not at all my explanation.

963
00:49:39,120 --> 00:49:42,759
Speaker 4: Then, no, it's your explanation. Now you nailed it. And

964
00:49:42,800 --> 00:49:46,200
Speaker 4: this was an article the Mysterious Black Squirrels of NYC

965
00:49:46,600 --> 00:49:49,160
Speaker 4: from what turns out to be a really good website

966
00:49:49,200 --> 00:49:52,600
Speaker 4: called Untapped Cities dot com and writer Michelle Young. It's

967
00:49:52,640 --> 00:49:53,480
Speaker 4: it's really cool read.

968
00:49:55,040 --> 00:49:58,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you got anything else on squirrels?

969
00:49:58,400 --> 00:50:00,960
Speaker 4: Nothing and hug a squirrel, Embrace the squirrel.

970
00:50:01,400 --> 00:50:04,279
Speaker 1: But don't do that. Don't if you do feed them,

971
00:50:04,280 --> 00:50:05,279
Speaker 1: don't don't let them.

972
00:50:05,200 --> 00:50:06,040
Speaker 2: Meet out of your hand.

973
00:50:06,239 --> 00:50:09,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, because they'll bite you. Even though they're grateful. There's

974
00:50:09,800 --> 00:50:14,440
Speaker 1: still bidy. And since I said that, everybody, it's time

975
00:50:14,480 --> 00:50:15,400
Speaker 1: for listener mail.

976
00:50:18,360 --> 00:50:20,799
Speaker 4: That's right, And It's a great listener mail because we

977
00:50:20,840 --> 00:50:24,920
Speaker 4: get to say hello to a kindergarten class, which is

978
00:50:24,920 --> 00:50:30,600
Speaker 4: always fun. Hello, Hi, mister Chuck and mister Josh. My

979
00:50:30,680 --> 00:50:34,399
Speaker 4: name is Katie. It's either Fink or Finky, and I'm

980
00:50:34,480 --> 00:50:37,160
Speaker 4: emailing with my kindergarten class in Baltimore City. We sometimes

981
00:50:37,160 --> 00:50:39,399
Speaker 4: listen to your show, and we were so excited when

982
00:50:39,400 --> 00:50:42,000
Speaker 4: you heard you mentioned the Three Sisters in the recent

983
00:50:42,040 --> 00:50:45,160
Speaker 4: watermelon episode. We actually spent a whole weekend learning about

984
00:50:45,160 --> 00:50:48,160
Speaker 4: the three Sisters this fall and wanted to share with

985
00:50:48,200 --> 00:50:50,880
Speaker 4: you our excitement. We hope you do a short stuff

986
00:50:50,880 --> 00:50:53,840
Speaker 4: on them soon. We definitely will if you need some

987
00:50:53,920 --> 00:50:57,880
Speaker 4: Three Sisters experts. We want to tell you these facts

988
00:50:57,880 --> 00:51:00,400
Speaker 4: that we learned this year. Oh yes, and here's a

989
00:51:00,400 --> 00:51:03,840
Speaker 4: little short list. Native Americans would plant fish first in

990
00:51:03,880 --> 00:51:06,000
Speaker 4: the ground to prepare the soil and make it healthy

991
00:51:06,040 --> 00:51:10,279
Speaker 4: and rich. Love that the corn grows so tall it

992
00:51:10,320 --> 00:51:14,360
Speaker 4: holds up the beans, and the squash keeps the soil moist,

993
00:51:14,920 --> 00:51:17,719
Speaker 4: so the other two sisters have enough water to stay hydrated.

994
00:51:18,280 --> 00:51:21,400
Speaker 4: And finally, all three of the sisters are dried so

995
00:51:21,480 --> 00:51:23,520
Speaker 4: that people can save them to eat later in the winter,

996
00:51:23,600 --> 00:51:27,320
Speaker 4: which is a great benefit, So we really want to

997
00:51:27,320 --> 00:51:29,080
Speaker 4: share our knowledge in case you do a short stuff

998
00:51:29,280 --> 00:51:34,680
Speaker 4: thanks for reading, love Miss Finkies or Miss Fink's kindergarten class.

999
00:51:35,640 --> 00:51:39,040
Speaker 4: And like I said, this is in Baltimore City.

1000
00:51:39,040 --> 00:51:42,200
Speaker 1: Man, that's really impressive. Like I remember in kindergarten, I

1001
00:51:42,239 --> 00:51:45,680
Speaker 1: was learning Red Red.

1002
00:51:47,719 --> 00:51:48,160
Speaker 2: Red.

1003
00:51:50,000 --> 00:51:53,040
Speaker 1: I wasn't learning about the three sisters and groundcovers like

1004
00:51:53,200 --> 00:51:55,839
Speaker 1: keeping them moisture in place for the other two. I mean,

1005
00:51:55,880 --> 00:52:01,920
Speaker 1: come on, that's really impressive this week. I think it

1006
00:52:02,000 --> 00:52:03,080
Speaker 1: was more like that month.

1007
00:52:04,239 --> 00:52:07,240
Speaker 4: February is red month. Right, Oh that's great.

1008
00:52:07,960 --> 00:52:10,920
Speaker 1: Well, thank you Miss fink or Finkey's class.

1009
00:52:11,080 --> 00:52:12,200
Speaker 2: Hats off to you guys.

1010
00:52:12,280 --> 00:52:15,080
Speaker 1: Keep it up, and yes, we will definitely do a

1011
00:52:15,120 --> 00:52:18,720
Speaker 1: Three Sisters episode someday dedicated to you guys, right.

1012
00:52:18,640 --> 00:52:19,680
Speaker 4: Chuck for sure.

1013
00:52:20,239 --> 00:52:22,000
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with us, you

1014
00:52:22,200 --> 00:52:29,160
Speaker 1: can too via email at stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.

1015
00:52:29,320 --> 00:52:32,200
Speaker 3: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For

1016
00:52:32,280 --> 00:52:36,480
Speaker 3: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

1017
00:52:36,600 --> 00:52:38,440
Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.